Real world scenes may have contrast ratios of as much as 50,000:1 between the brightest highlights and the darkest shadows. Many existing image processing systems are only capable of reproducing contrast ratios of at most a few hundreds to one. Thus, many existing cameras are not capable of taking advantage of the fact that display systems may now be capable of supporting high dynamic range (“HDR”) image formats and permitting rendering images of contrast ratios of a few thousands to one or better.
HDR is not yet widely supported because of the high costs associated with HDR image acquisition under existing approaches. For example, image sensors that are capable of producing discerning responses to a wide range of luminance levels are expensive to manufacture. Even if deployed at a high cost, a large volume of image data that would be generated, requiring expensive processing power to process the image data responsively. As a result, for small footprint devices such as consumer electronic devices, it would be neither economically feasible nor technically viable to support HDR image acquisition.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section. Similarly, issues identified with respect to one or more approaches should not assume to have been recognized in any prior art on the basis of this section, unless otherwise indicated.